**Offsite- This event will take place at The Venue, 1794 Massachusetts Ave, Lexington

From the Battle of Lexington to the present day, Black soldiers have continuously fought for this country.  During the Revolutionary War, Black patriots, along with their Indigenous and White neighbors, fought one of the world's most powerful empires for 8 long years.  They endured incredible hardship.  They sacrificed their lives.

Prince Estabrook, the first Black Patriot, was 35 years old when the Revolutionary War started.  He was a member of Captain Parker’s militia. He lived in downtown Lexington near the intersection of what is now Massachusetts Avenue and Grant Street. When he stood shoulder to shoulder with his White neighbors at dawn on April 19, 1775, Prince Estabrook was also an enslaved member of the Benjamin Estabrook household.

Private Prince Estabrook served multiple enlistments throughout the war and is one of the few soldiers, if not the only soldier, to fight at dawn on April 19, 1775 and to be serving in the Continental Army in 1783 when the war ended.

On July 8, 2026, we will celebrate Quock Walker Day, also known as Massachusetts Emancipation Day with a screening of the Prince Estabrook episode of the Black Patriots of Lexington. Slavery was effectively abolished in Massachusetts through the July 1783 ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in the last of the Quock Walker cases.  Thus, Prince returned to Lexington a free man at the end of the war.  The Quock Walker cases and the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution further extended the freedoms espoused in the Declaration of Independence.

Following the screening, we will have a discussion with Charlie Price and Sean D. Osborne, two modern day Black patriots of Lexington.  Army veteran Charlie Price is a reenactor and former captain of The Lexington Minute Men. Air Force veteran Sean D. Osborne is a storyteller, public historian, and producer of the Black Patriots of Lexington YouTube series. 

Attendance is on a first-come basis.

For more information on the Black Patriots of Lexington video series visit www.abclex.org and https://lex250.org/lexington-blackpatriots/.  This series is dedicated to the Black men and women whose heroic acts have been relegated to the shadows of our historical knowledge.  While imagining a world that could be, they struggled against the world that was. We are the beneficiaries of their sacrifices.   As such, it is our responsibility to remember and share those memories.  

This free event is cosponsored by the Association of Black Citizens of Lexington, Cary Memorial Library and Tricons 2 Red Tails.